Various

“ A generous play of late-summer and autumn radiance lights up its every nook and corner; it is mellow with warm color and odorous of late fruits and flowers. We cannot help finding the artist visitor, that product of the bloom of Boston civilization, a little hackneyed and time-worn. He has surely done his part in literature, and may retire to the heaven of the dilettante. But all the inhabitants of Marsh Island are human and attractive, and the untiring industries of the well-ordered household soothe one like the rhythm of a song. ”

“ Ramsay laid bare his woes, Mr. Ketchum listening attentively, and saying, when he had finished, "I know; I know. When I thought I had lost Mabel once, I carried the universe around on a sore back all day, and then my heart would get up on its hind legs and yelp half the night; and there have been other times when I got caught in the machinery, and I know how it hurts, I think of those times often. They grind a man down to the quick, and send the chaff flying: they teach him valuable lessons. ”

“ No human being could by any possibility look in at that window. Even the curtain could only be detected with an opera-glass from the steamer that passed twice a week. But the sweet instinct of privacy and home had had its way, and every night the little curtain that never shut out anything but the incurious moonlight or the innocent stars was drawn as regularly as the shades of a Fifth Avenue mansion. Later we learned that it was the Life-Saving Station of Lake Superior. ”

“ And Kitty changed color.
"Ah, one must not ask questions," Fräulein Vogel remarked; "but one can have plenty of suspicions. I dare say you were in love, and, as love failed, you have taken to art. So it goes with women. Everything but marriage is a pis-aller."
Kitty half rose: the stray arrow had sped home, and it rankled in a new wound.
"I am a woman myself," added Fräulein Vogel, with a droll smile that melted the girl's anger in an instant.
Kitty dropped down on the sofa. "Well," she said gayly, "I grant that I was in love once on a time; but that is all past. Now I want to be a painter. ”

“ The quiet, stone-paved courts, the grassy nooks gemmed with a few choice blossoms, the soft-plashing fountains, overshadowed by sturdy elm-, plane-, or fig-trees, the cool stone archways leading from one court to another, the park-like expanse of the Temple Garden, bounded by the bustling Embankment and the swift-flowing river, are surroundings favorable alike to the labors of a busy journalist, to the novelist's weavings of fiction, to the poet's subtile creations, to the purposeful studies of the patient scholar, or to the objectless dreamings of the mere "man about town." ”

“ It is one of the handsomest in the city, elegantly furnished; they always have a crowd of people at their entertainments, some of them delightful people to meet anywhere else, but somehow there seems a kind of pall draped above the front door that drops down behind you when you enter and never lifts till you leave. Mrs. Richardson puts on all her war-paint and feathers and goes around all the evening anxiously trying to make the thing go off, and it gets worse and worse every moment, so dull and stupid that you can hardly keep awake, and not quite quiet enough for a good nap. ”

“ Miss Noel walked her five miles a day. She was out sketching for hours under her umbrella, no matter what the weather was, and only said, "Thank you for your kind concern, but I am quite equal to it," when Mrs. Ketchum, astonished to see a woman of her own age enduring such fatigue and running such risks, undertook to remonstrate with her. "One must get one's constitutional, you know, and one must not mind a drop or two. There has been no really bad weather yet, —nothing to keep one in-doors, at least." ”

“ Of course one isn't looking one's best; but that is of no consequence. Health is the first consideration," said Ethel. "Ah! there comes your father."
Of the walk it need only be said that it was very pleasant going, and rained a little coming back; that Ethel produced her "goloshes," put up her umbrella, and walked home as serenely as her concern for Bijou would admit. That young lady had on paper-soled boots that got soaking wet, a fine summer parasol that she seemed to think fulfilled every office that was desirable in shielding her bonnet, a dress ill fitted to resist chill or dampness. ”

“ Aurora asked.
"Why, no! His note was left immediately after you started. I sent a reply instantly to his hotel, asking him to dine with us. His acceptance was handed me while we were taking coffee. Did you not see Febiano present the note? It was a comedy. That man cannot resign the idea that we are official people, I and John both, and he never lets a note wait, whoever may be with me. He comes with a solemn, gliding discretion, a sort of secret-stairway manner, and half presents, half slides the note to me, as if it were a call to a council of inquisitors in the ducal palace." ”

“ Churchill seems to think that Aurora is softening toward him. It really seems so to me also. Last evening she sat apart and talked with him nearly two hours; and this morning, as we sat alone, she suddenly exclaimed, 'I wish that Mr. Churchill would come in!'
"It is true that, having refused him once, she may feel free to show that she likes him as a friend. However it may turn out, I hope that she may be as happy as she deserves. For my part, I could not wish her a more honorable and devoted lover. He is a man calculated to win affection and esteem." ”

“ A moment of suspense, a quick motion of the lance, and the great white body of the whale rose from the water and fell heavily back, beating it into foam in its convulsive struggles.
"She dies hard," said Captain Sol, shaking the water from the creases of his oil-skin as the boat rounded to at a safe distance from the dying whale. "But," he continued, lighting a match by biting the sulphur and puffing violently at a short, black pipe, "that ain't nothing to what they do sometimes: is it, Sam?" ”

“ These mountains protect the valley from the chill winds of winter, and temper the summer breezes to a delicious coolness, making the atmosphere the most delightful that can be imagined. The bottoms along the rivers are wide and productive, bearing then a thick crop of tall grass, on which multitudes of deer, elk, and buffalo were browsing. The soil of the bottoms is a deep, dark loam, capable of yielding immense crops of wheat and Indian corn, while the higher and less fertile land along the base of the mountain will produce fruits of the most delicate flavor and in astonishing abundance. ”

“ As in a dream, as though they were indeed being sucked up through the blue unsteady air, Aurora tried to pull the locket from her bosom, and desisted, for, throwing aside the faded leaf, D'Rubiera extended his arms with an "Aurora!" which held all pleading and all command, all passion and all delight, that love can give to the human voice. ”

“ That asserts itself anywhere."
She certainly contrived to make herself a very lovely and interesting object seen against those rich cushions. No color reflected upon her but light, in her slight languor and pallor of convalescence, her cheeks delicately thinned, she was like a white rose drooping in the heat of noonday.
The nursery sent down its treasure. First came Aurora in her Madonna dress, and was received with acclamations. ”

“ Did you ever know anything so idle as those Brown women? The men here are very active and 'go-ahead,' as they call it, but the women seem to do one of two things,—either they hold their hands altogether and are a thousand times more idle than any queen or duchess, or they work themselves to death, and are cooks, sempstresses, maids, housemaids, nurses, governesses, ladies, and a dozen other things rolled into one,—poor things! Thank heaven I am not an American lady."
"I see what you mean," said Miss Noel. "That dear, sweet girl Bijou has had no practical training whatever. ”

“ Standing in the shady archway, with the roar and rattle, the glare and glitter, of Fleet Street at our backs, we instinctively feel that we are about to enter a new and strange locality, the quiet atmosphere and the cloister-like walks of which seem redolent of books and the pursuits of bookish men. ”

“ Here the steamer would wait three hours, and we could explore the queer little town,—quite a popular resort in summer,—or inspect the splendid locks of the great canal, or shoot the rapids. To me it was a genuine pleasure to find at last some rapids that were visible to the naked eye. The famous rapids of the St. Lawrence had been a severe disappointment, but here were rapids worthy of the name. ”

“ They were all young, all painters, all poor. Who cared what they did? What if they sat on a beach under a linden-tree and played cat's-cradle like children? What if they made little excursions to Zons or to Xanten? What if there was a supper in Joe Buckley's studio, and Kitty Waring and Anna van der Meer—a sedate creature from Rotterdam was she—were taught how to make a true, good bowl? Who cared? In fact, all DÃ¥sseldorf cared.
One day the Frau Pastorin called Kitty into her parlor. "Dear child," she began, "if your good mother—"
"She has been dead fifteen years," said Kitty. ”

“ Fashionable men wear those costumes altogether now," said Mr. Ketchum, coming up. "You see, Daisy, that if I shocked him beyond expression yesterday morning, as you said I should, he has horrified me to death to-day: so I guess we are quits. Come along: let's go down to see the trapeze-performance."
Down they went, and, meeting Mr. Ramsay, who was coming up, Job stopped a moment to tell him to take out any of the horses that he fancied. "Take the piebalds," said he, "if you'd like to have a drive, and take some nice girl—Miss Ethel or Bijou Brown—for a two-forty shine." ”

“ On the second day of their stay in Sassovivo the duke and duchess drove down early in the morning to the campagna, and left another brewing of ossequii to fizz itself out in unresponsive air.
Aurora was going to erect a memorial fountain to her mother in the midst of the long, hot, dusty road to the station. A wild spring of delicious water lay back in a rocky pasture. This was to be brought forward and run into marble basins for man and beast. ”

“ Up to this time the publishers had not known whether they were women or men. "On reaching Mr. Smith's," writes Mrs. Gaskell, "Charlotte put his own letter into his hands,—the same letter which had excited so much disturbance at Haworth Parsonage only twenty-four hours before. 'Where did you get this?' said he, as if he could not believe that the two young ladies dressed in black, of slight figures, looking pleased yet agitated, could be the embodied Currer and Acton Bell for whom curiosity had been hunting so eagerly in vain." ”

“ Ethel.
"That isn't as nice a church as ours. We will take the others into Kalsing, eh, husband?" said Mabel; "that is, if they will come."
"I will go to the scaffold with Mrs. Ketchum," protested Sir Robert gallantly. "What do you youngsters say?"
"Ramsay and I thought we would walk over to that little village on the crest of a hill that one can see from my window," said Mr. Heathcote.
"You had much better go to church, —much better. But of course your soul is your own," said Sir Robert.
"You won't have much body left when you get back: it is a good twenty miles," remarked Mr. Ketchum. ”

“ Drummond had suddenly appeared, put up at a fashionable hotel, and, with no other credentials than his handsome person, good manners, and bold assertions that he was related to certain great people in England, had been accepted in society with that beautiful faith and charity that believeth all things an Englishman of supposed position may choose to say of himself, in spite of much disastrous experience of foreign adventurers both painful and ludicrous. ”

“ She returned to Richmond in 1829, and lived at Bellville until that elegant mansion was destroyed by fire in 1842. After her return, she confined her entertainments almost exclusively to handsome dinner-parties, at which she presided with exceeding grace and elegance, and where it was said that, though the wines were fine, the flavor and brilliancy of the conversation were far superior. She never retired without a candle and writing-materials at her bedside, and if during the night any new idea or bright thought arose, she would immediately strike a light and jot it down. ”